1882, John Singer Sargent, The Sulphur Match -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: Sparks of romance and intrigue enliven a neighborhood café as a fur-clad lazzagnon (a stereotype of a Venetian dandy-loafer) conspires with a laughing local maiden. Is John Singer Sargent portraying an innocent flirtation, or is this a prelude to intoxication and seduction, as the overturned bottle, broken wine glass, and precarious angle of the woman’s chair may hint? Though the painter may have witnessed such an episode during his extended visits to Venice, this scene is staged, and this dark-haired model may be the same posing in Sargent’s life-size A Venetian Woman, elsewhere in this exhibition. The discarded bottle and shattered glass on the floor suggest the reawakened glassmaking furnaces on Murano, which produced everyday glassware as well as luxury blown glass items.
1882, John Singer Sargent, The Sulphur Match -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: Sparks of romance and intrigue enliven a neighborhood café as a fur-clad lazzagnon (a stereotype of a Venetian dandy-loafer) conspires with a laughing local maiden. Is John Singer Sargent portraying an innocent flirtation, or is this a prelude to intoxication and seduction, as the overturned bottle, broken wine glass, and precarious angle of the woman’s chair may hint? Though the painter may have witnessed such an episode during his extended visits to Venice, this scene is staged, and this dark-haired model may be the same posing in Sargent’s life-size A Venetian Woman, elsewhere in this exhibition. The discarded bottle and shattered glass on the floor suggest the reawakened glassmaking furnaces on Murano, which produced everyday glassware as well as luxury blown glass items.